I just started nioting the “Land Acknowledgment” – the laborious-yet-offhand “acknowledgment” that an event was being held on land once occupied by Natives – in the last couple of years, mostly among the sorts of Twin Cities “social justice” non-profits that exude self-righteousness like some people exude bad breath.
It’s struck me as mawkish and purposeless, the sort of consequence-free moral preening that, well, defines the modern “social justice” mob, while putting none of their own skin in the game. It is to history what the term “Latinx” is to sociology and linguistics; a way to make a complex subject palatable to socially fussy white progressive social justice lemmings.
I finally have an arsenal of responses, from this article, which has almost too many great points to try to pullquote.
I said “almost”:
It is difficult to exaggerate the superficiality of these statements. What do members of the acknowledged group hold sacred? What makes them unique and identifies them to one another? Who are they, where did they come from, and where are they going? The evasion of these fundamental questions is typical. The speaker demonstrates no knowledge of the people whose names he reads carefully off the sheet of paper. Nor does he make any but the most general connection between the event and those people, other than an ancient one, not too different from the speaker’s relationship with the local geology or flora.
Things get more substantial, but no less acerbic. I recommend it.
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